The weekend of October 10th and 11th saw the annual Irish University Sailing Association Eastern Championships take place in Wexford Harbour Boating and Tennis Club.

The weekend of October 10^th and 11^th saw the annual Irish University Sailing Association Eastern Championships take place in Wexford Harbour Boating and Tennis Club. The event hosted by UCD Sailing Club was a great success. Not alone did UCD firsts win the event outright but UC D also claimed third in the gold fleet, first in silver in addition to second and third in bronze taking home over half of the prizes on offer.

The smooth running of the event was assured with veteran race officer John Downey lined up to take charge on the water, Rory O’Sullivan keeping a watchful eye over proceedings ashore while Gordon Davies and his team of umpires ensuring rules were adhered to. Nothing was left to chance with the exception of the weather which, to the relief of all involved, complied allowing the starts to be cracked out on Saturday morning.

With 82 races scheduled for Saturday, and only a light breeze, there was always going to be an uphill struggle to try and complete the round robins before teatime. By mid-afternoon the breeze had almost dropped off completely while a ripping tide was making progress up the course virtually impossible (think running on a treadmill) so the decision was made to call a halt for the day and head ashore ready for an early start Sunday morning.

The remaining races were competed in no time and with the seeding for the quarter finals finalised UCD1, UCD2 and UCD3 were in contention for the big prize. UCD2 put up a formidable challenge to DIT1 in the semis only to be overcome narrowly while UCD 1 secured their place in the final with a victory over TCD1. A best of 5 race final saw UCD1 emerge victorious by a margin of 3 to 1 with team member Danielle Vincent stating she was ‘quietly confident’ of a win on the final beat.

According to former UCD sailor (and umpire for the weekend), Jim Devlin, it was the 03/04 season when UCD last won a university sailing event outright and this wasn’t lost on the victorious team as they came ashore. The win is a result of countless hours of training, not just at weekends, but during the week as well in addition to having access to a fleet of brand new boats and top quality team racing coaches. In winning their own event UCD have thrown down the gauntlet for other colleges for the forthcoming season.

Elsewhere UCD4 took top honours in the silver fleet beating NUIG1 in a final best remembered for ‘a range of technical issues with multiple boats’ according to Andrew O’Donoghue. In the bronze final UCD5 lost out to UCC2, finishing in second place. UCD2 meanwhile finished third in the Gold fleet narrowly missing out to DIT1 in the semi-finals.

Whilst the running of such an event is often taken for granted this is not to say a huge amount of effort isn’t put in by a number of people-the organising committee, the umpires, beachmaster, race officer and those who towed boats. In particular UCD sailing club would like to thank Michael Jones of WHBTC for ensuring that everything was provided as needed and for the warm welcome all the sailors received in the clubhouse over the course of the weekend.

Gold Fleet

1^st: UCD1. Rory Murphy/Danielle Vincent, Aidan McLaverty/Sharon Quigley, Nick Harger/Elaine Farrell

2^nd: DIT1. Conor Byrne/Pamela Lee, David Reddy/Chris Cantwell, Simon Rattigan/Rachel Guy

3^rd: UCD2. Matthew Murphy/Anne Collins, Theo Murphy/Christine Lynch, Annalise Murphy/Katie Curtin